Oil derrick blown away by Hurricane, 5-3

Patrick Dwyer slips the puck through Devan Dubnyk almost as easily as he evaded Edmonton Oilers' "defence".

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This thing was a mess right from the start. By the time TSN joined the fray two minutes in after the completion of game one of their doubleheader, the camera stopped behind the Oilers bench for a moment and Chris Cuthbert noted: “Tom Renney has to be a little uneasy with the start, as in the opening two minutes two great chances for Carolina as they had forwards left uncovered in front of Devan Dubnyk.” Before they could show replays of those two, a third near miss occurred on DD’s deserted doorstep. Ray Ferraro opined much later that “from the first minute of the game Oilers defensively have been a mess”.

My own observation was that Edmonton was fortunate to have only ceded five goals, heck, Jeff Skinner could have had that many all on his own if only he had brought his goal-scoring stick. The slippery teenage star left befuddled Oilers in his slipstream all night long. The Oil couldn’t handle Chad Larose and Patrick Dwyer, let alone a talent like Jeff Skinner.

Not only were the Oilers unready to start this one at even strength, their special teams also forgot to show up, yielding powerplay goals on the first two ‘canes chances, while their own powerplay gave up a clear breakaway in its first 15 seconds of action on a sequence so comically inept that I giggled my way through the rewatch. (It’s a coping mechanism.) The PP later yielded a second breakaway that Dwyer converted for the shorthanded game winner pictured up top. From Dubnyk’s perspective, this was about a typical chance of the dozens that Carolina created all night long. Dennis King had the scoring chances at 25-8 Carolina, while our own David Staples scored them 27-10, including 11-2 in the third period when Carolina was theoretically running out of gas while Oilers were, also theoretically, pouring on some gas of their own. Which they did, I suppose, if you credit raging blazes in the defensive zone.

The Oil kept this one artifically close by getting some scoring from unlikely sources, including Eric Belanger and Ben Eager’s first goals as Oilers. Magnus Paajarvi and Anton Lander each got their third point of the campaign, while Lennart Petrell hit a milestone of sorts with his fifth. Plumbers of the world, unite!

It was a particularly brutal game for Oilers’ veterans, whose heads were in the clouds all night. They couldn’t generate anything, they couldn’t cover anyone, they couldn’t make a damn line change, rumour had it they weren’t even up to facing the post-game media scrum.

Carolina, who entered their second game in two nights on a seven-game losing streak and holding the NHL’s worst points percentage (.345), were not just full value for the win, they wiped the floor with Oil. From the perspective of the home side, it was an embarrassing soiling of the bed before an increasingly antsy crowd that has endured an horrific home stand which surely to goodness reached rock bottom with this stinker.

#4 Taylor Hall, did not play, and very badly missed judging by Oilers’ 1-4-1 record in his absence.

#5 Ladi Smid, 3 – Competed his tail off as usual, bless him, but he came out second best time and again. Three errors including two primaries sum up his night.

#6 Ryan Whitney, 2 – He bears the demeanour of a worried man these days, his confidence as far from view as that fluid skating stride we used to enjoy so much. Other than one lovely stretch pass to set up a 2-on-1, not many positive plays from Whitney, and when he tried to force the action, breakaways ensued. He seems not only slow afoot, but slow reacting to the play and generally indecisive. A team-worst 6 individual scoring chances against, and most of them were doozies.

#10 Shawn Horcoff, 3 – Led the whole team in ice time with almost 22 minutes, but he too had a terrible time. Created flat nothing the whole game – David had his Neilson number at +0/-3 while Dennis had him on the ice for 0 Oiler scoring chances for and 7 against. Signature play occurred when he stood in the middle of the ice but checked absolutely nobody as Tuomo Ruutu slipped inside to make it 5-2 early in the third.

#14 Jordan Eberle, 5 – Created almost nothing, other than a secondary assist on Nugent-Hopkins’ late marker. Did make one of the better emergency backchecks of the night, tipping away a pass to yet another Hurricane who had slipped behind enemy lines.

#20 Eric Belanger, 5 – Finally got on the board with his first goal of the season a mere 28 games in, an extremely greasy one which I was sure would be called off for being kicked in. Oilers got the call, as they did a few minutes earlier when Carolina had one disallowed for the same reason, and once again Edmonton had the first goal and a fully undeserved lead midway through the first. Belanger later made a couple of nice passes in the offensive zone including one that sent Jones in for an excellent chance, but he too struggled at times in the defensive end. Was one of three forwards who made a bad change near the end of a second-period powerplay that led directly to the Carolina shortie.

#24 Theo Peckham, 3 – We saw the best and worst of Theo in the first when he twice stood up to Jiri Tlusty at Oilers blueline, crushing the ‘canes forward with a great hit on one of them but missing the man and allowing Tlusty to walk in on Dubnyk the other time. In the third had a memorable shift when he missed a wide-open net, then was caught out by Skinner and forced to bring the speedy sniper down with a wicked two-hander that could have been a major but instead resulted in a penalty shot, since Skinner was on a clear breakaway at the time. Also had two errors and a ten-minute misconduct. Another night at the office.

#25 Andy Sutton, 4 – Somehow wound up with a +2 rating, had an assist, and one of the night’s best hits when he hammered Skinner in open ice late in the third. Took one highly questionable boarding penalty when he bumped Tuomo Ruutu so gently that Ruutu just carried on with his business of helping the ‘canes score on the play – a little hard to accept for Oiler fans with fresh memories of Ryan Wilson catapulting Taylor Hall into the boards at a thousand miles an hour, sidelining the young Oilers star for weeks without so much as a two-minute ban for Wilson. But if there’s one thing we’ve come to understand about the standard of officiating in this league, it’s that those standards change from night to night if not shift to shift. Sutton also took down Eric Staal with a questionable knee-on-knee hit (no call on that one), and later still took a very deserved boarding call for leaving his feet to wallpaper Alexei Ponikarovsky in a video clip that may soon feature a Brendan Shanahan voice-over.

#28 Ryan Jones, 5 – I keep seeing him good, and did again even in this stinker. Jones was aggressive on the puck, causing (positive!) turnovers at both bluelines, actually dropped back to the point to cover for a rushing defenceman (almost unique on this night), and at least tried to make things happen with 3 shots, 3 hits, 2 takeaways, and +1 for his night’s work. Did get slightly burned on the PK in arriving a split second late to prevent Jamie McBain’s bad-angle wrister.

#37 Lennart Petrell, 5 – The fourth line was not the problem in this one, even chipping in with a goal with Petrell in the middle of it. The big Finn was sitting in the box for one of the ‘canes’ goals, though, having taken an offensive zone obstruction penalty.

#40 Devan Dubnyk, 4 – 5 goals against on 33 shots doesn’t look that good, but he was left to his own devices far too often. Made a few big stops, but didn’t have enough answers, looking particularly vulnerable on Skinner’s low shot through his pads and leaning the wrong way on McBain’s, two goals which put this game on the road to perdition. Made a splendid stop on Skinner’s penalty shot (pictured), where at least he didn’t have the distraction of wondering what happened to his defence.

#55 Ben Eager, 5 – Scored his first goal as an Oiler depositing Petrell’s rebound to temporarily staunch the bleeding at 4-2. Took a ridiculous penalty for a clean hit on Bryan Allen and showed enough crazy in the penalty box that he was fortunate not to get tabbed for anything further, especially on a night the officials had a short fuse. Otherwise didn’t get credited with a hit all night.

#57 Anton Lander, 5 – Made a nice play at the offensive blueline to kick off Eager’s goal, and had a few good sequences on the penalty kill. An OK showing in his return to the line-up from a hand infection.

#58 Jeff Petry, 4 – The least worst of the defence crew. Did have more than a few adventures with Whitney, including a few sequences where both got sucked into the same part of the ice.

#77 Tom Gilbert, 3 – All over the place in this one with a case of the “happy feet”. Made some good plays in there but was exposed a few times. I docked him for his stupid penalty seconds after RNH had cut the gap to 5-3, which killed any momentum that might have been developing, not to mention any lingering illusion that Oilers deserved to be in this game.

#83 Ales Hemsky, 2 – Other than one excellent pass that Peckham muffed, he created nothing and gave up a ton. Officially -1 on the night, he was in the penalty box for the first Hurricanes goal, and barely on the Oilers bench for the third and fourth, which came 2 and 4 seconds respectively after the end of Hemsky shifts. Both changes were lazy, and the second so brutally irresponsible that Hemsky was rightfully upbraided by Ferraro for his negligence.

#89 Sam Gagner, 4 – Guilt by association, perhaps, as he leaked scoring chances all night on the Horcoff-Hemsky line before finally picking up an assist on a strong play behind the net and pass to RNH for the 5-3 marker. Still, there were a number of plays I thought he was defensively soft and/or out of position and/or puck-watching.

#91 Magnus Paajarvi, 5 – Made a decent play to set the table for Belanger’s illegal goal and generally was OK-not-great.

#93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 5 – Had his moments, especially in the game’s back half when many of the veterans had long since mailed it in. Scored a bit of a greasy goal (pictured) after making a nifty move to elude his check on the side wall and managing to chop one past Ward, increasing his impressive rookie season to 13-17-30, +5. His 7/13=54% on the faceoff dot was tops among Oilers’ centres (although all were very close to break-even; faceoffs weren’t the problem in this one.)

#94 Ryan Smyth, 2 – Just brutal, one of the worst games I’ve ever seen him play. Got owned by Larose in the corner on the play that led directly to the disallowed goal, made a real soft backcheck on Ruutu’s tally, and joined Hemsky and to a lesser extent Belanger in making a horrible line change on the shortie that put this one out of reach. Offensively had nothing going at all, as characterized by one play where he took a good pass in the neutral zone in position to lead a 3-on-2 rush only to bobble the puck away without anyone around him. His Neilson number of +0/-4 is especially horrific for a winger.

Coach Tom Renney, 1 – Three off-days to get the team prepared and this was the best his club could do? Unacceptable.

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Next up: Colorado @ Edmonton, Friday, December 9, 19:30 MST

It's time for another game of Spot The Puck! Devan Dubnyk actially manages to corral this one, with the omnipresent Jeff Skinner right in his kitchen.

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